Should you play a Rules Heavy or Rules Light RPG?

I can tell you from personal experience that a drill is relatively effective as a hammer

0:10
33 years. Started running when I was 11 back in '92.

What have I done????

Had a SL of fun for decades!!

The main problem with rules heavy games is people who don't learn the rules enough to understand their own character. In rules light systems lazy players who make no effort are LESS of a problem(still bad though)

Light vs heavy rules doesnt have to be about limiting options, the more consistent difference is how much do the rules tell you how hard a check is? In rules light systems it can actually punish you A LOT for giving the gm the wrong vibe because they will just start limiting your character in weird ways. At least when the book says how far you can jump the dm can't just make it harder every session until your specialization dissapears

I have been in the light-medium camp forever. Even with D&D 1, we were discarding entire sections of rules, like light, language, weight, distance, etc. Mainly because I'm there to have fun, and high mental load (as is also the case with heavy boardgames) isn't as much fun for me. I'm also not interested in pre-game optimizations (part of the reason I have no interest in deck construction games like Magic TCG).

If I play with others, I'll lean toward more structure, because I hate role-play. But solo, I can get creative, so I go lighter (but not all the way to one-sheet lightness).

It seems to me that players who prefer a lot of crunch tend to either want to demonstrate mastery over the system, or want to "compete" with the GM. Players who prefer lighter systems tend to be into social play and creativity. Not universally, of course, but there's something there.

I don't think you mentioned it in the video, but rules heavy games are harder. Barriers to entry and harder typically to find a game in progress for you to join. Whereas rules light games are easy to pick up and easy to play, but there's a million of them and no one's heard of half of them

This all depends upon who your players are. A party of veteran grognards will enjoy a crunchier game than a party of pre-teens.

I think that this division into rules heavy and rules light systems is slightly too simplified, I need the DM factor there!
Balance and outcomes is streamlined to communication, agreement, decision, and interpretation- Judged by DM along with the table? Light rules.
vs
Balance and outcomes is solved with text and rules- Judged by the book- where DM is only an Arbiter? Rules Heavy.

Both bulky & crunchy and light, & small games can be good or bad at achieving what they want to do. For example, I find DnD 5e to be rather simple game (No internal systems for personality, story progression, crafting, reputation etc) that still decided to crunch and attempt to have rule for everything and leave a lot of work to DM because they never fleshed out many major areas. That's why thousands of people are trying to make it easier. Maybe that's why it feels like it's both light and heavy at the same time.

Rules Heavy for me = you need to know things BEFORE you play, DM tells you what's possible
Rules Light for me = you need very little to start, YOU tell DM what you want to do and they judge outcomes

I think what I like are games that give A LOT of rules (making it easy to start and know what's possible) but are light on interpretation, inspiring creativity and fun. Rules light and rules heavy don't express that.

Rules lite works best for me as a GM because i make it up as i go along

I like both styles of play, but i will admit that the most crazy fun things happen in rules-lite games. At least in my experience. In rules-heavy games, crazy solutions are possible, but they are more work, and more often than not depend on the gm being willing to bend the RAW. In a rules-lite game we defeated a Minataur by chucking propane tanks out of a wildly speeding food-truck...and the sucess/failure was in the dice gods hands...not whether the exact wording of throwing mechanics meant we were short 5 feet so we never had a chance to begin with.

And maybe in a rules-heavy game we would have been able to come up with a comparable solution. But I'm not sure we would have bothered because it would have been much more effort, so why not just stick with the standard hit bad thing with spells and pointy object that at least we are familiar with.

Rules-lite games lend themselves to "omg, i have the stupidest idea moments." At least in my experience. Because the answer to "is that possible" is more likely to be "lets find out!" than it is to be "well do you have a specific move/spell that details you being able to do that?...oh, and make sure it says 'creature' and not 'human' or else the whole plan fails."

After decades of playing rules heavy thinking it's cool, really rules light is the way to go. I do enough paperwork and taxes to have fun in a number crunchy pen and paper game that takes forever to resolve combats and scenes. Rules light with good mechanics, like dungeon world is leagues better.

As a GM, I prefer rules-light or rules-medium games. I want to have room to move.
As a player, I prefer rules-medium or rules-heavy games. I want to know what to expect and I want to really build a character.

At 6:20 I have to disagree with one part of the "this is a drill" point. Rules heavy games do not always, (and I would even say it is not common to) strictly prohibit the use of a drill as a hammer. That normally comes down to the GM not allowing that because "there is a hammer, why would you use a drill as a hammer". Instead rules heavy games will provide what is a drill, and what is a hammer, what they do, and how they are different. GMs can usually allow for improvisation without breaking the rules, although it may take some improvisation on their part, like increasing the difficulty, or changing the process of determining success or failure.

I play a homebrew campaign which I believe sits within "the Goldilocks zone" wherein I subtract crunch by simplifying or excising certain rules and add crunch where I feel the rules are lacking.

To answer the question. Well using only hand tools doesn't make you a better woodworker. An artist is only great if their art is considered great. A great novel is just words on a page, it's how they were chosen and used that matters. If the DM sucks, it doesn't matter what RPG they were using. If the DM is great, it doesn't matter what RPG they are using. Sooo, how long do you want to spend making a PC? How much effort do you want to need to run a game? I like Warhammer FRPG, but it can get expensive to purchase. Fortunately you only 'need' the core manual. To play D&D you only require the BE in BECMI. If you offered me every single 5th edition book in print in hardcover for free, I am likely to thank you and not use it. I'd rather have an original copy of the adventure modules up to and including 1st AD&D. Not that all of them were great though.

Some of the most creative and best improve I have had in my campaigns has been with extremly heavy rules game.

I think your description of rules light vs heavy is kinda wrong. I don't think crunch means less creativity. I think it often allows for a great deal of possibilities, because the designers have accounted for those possibilities, you just need to pay attention to the rules in order to do that, rather than rolling the same checks with the same broad skills. The possibility exists to do something incredible within the rules and the rules are your framework for how to accomplish that, it can be especially rewarding long-term.
I say this as someone who prefers rules light games.

You actually need to have a Broad tag in City of Mist, but just one. The character creation rules say you will meed this Broad one that is always useful.

I've been working on making a game and it's a rules heavy game. One of the main reasons for that is that I really like hard magic systems so even with a lot of different ways to cast spells (base spell with multiple spell modifiers) they're all detailed out. I've seen people say rules heavy games are harder to be creative with but in the game I'm making if you aren’t creative it can actually hurt your character. There's a title system that can turn your character's personality, philosophy, and aesthetic into actual mechanical abilities. Do you yell insults as you attack someone? Are your fireballs shaped like birds? Those simple descriptions can come to define a character giving new abilities and shaping your soul


Honestly I'd be interested in seeing people try and "break" my game with min-maxing. The game is designed to where characters may be different levels at similar power cause they've spent the same amount of experience

Rules heavy games are actually better than narrative games for immersion.

Thats because they tend to be simulationistic in nature.

All you need is a GM with the time and patience needed to master a rules heavy game, like Rolemaster, for example.

From what you guys are saying, you seem to be separating GM types more than game types. Anyone can use a “rules-heavy” system in the manner that you talked about for “rules-light” system.

My favourite rules light RPG is Dreamchaser because it's very easy to pick up and make it fit your group.

Mage: the Ascension (Revised Edition) is my favourite rules heavy RPG by a huge margin. Ars Magica comes close, but there is nothing quite like the big magical mixing bowl of genres that is Mage. However, you have to learn a lot of rules and its also very demanding of the players, and especially the storyteller leading the group.
The base premise is that reality is determined consensually and your magic comes from your paradigm (how you believe reality works), so you'll often have heated discussion about paradigms. Think of something like Morpheus trying to explain to someone that reality is merely a program they exist within, or agent Smith trying to convince the other agents there's a world outside of the Matrix.
The magic system is based on your understanding of the different spheres of magic (life, matter, time, space, etc.) that you can freely combine to cast spells. You start off quite weak with only an ability to sense these things, but by the end you'll be able to bend reality to your will. This does mean the game becomes easier to break as you progress, hence you need more adult roleplayers to get the most out of the game or you'll just end up with Murderhobo: the Apocalypse.

At around 4:27, an interesting game to consider is Mothership, where the rules suggest that rolling the dice is not considering whether or not your character succeeds, rather, if they can mitigate consequences. For example, you're trying to jump across the gap, your character needs to get across to make the story keep going, so the GM doesn't really consider failure here. You don't hit the target number, so the downside is you drop your flashlight. Mothership being a sci-fi horror game, losing that flashlight is pretty bad news. Another game, or system of games, is the 2d20 games (Achtung! Cthulhu, Dune, Star Trek, etc.) where some tests are recommended to be 0 successes needed, this is so the players can build up pools of the in-game meta currency.

All that to say, I think a key difference, an y'all touched on it, rules-light games tend to rely on the GM's interpretation and really asks the GM to adjudicate.

Great discussion! I'm bouncing between rules light and rules heavy games. Learning a ton of rules can be straining but if they are logical and consistent, it's generally a one-off thing. Rules light games tend to give me creative fatigue after a while, but they are faster to learn.

I like that rules light allows for player creativity without straining the system or taking levels in multiple classes with special archetypes, and a bunch of prerequisite feats

That thumbnail 😂

As a game system the Fate system is very misleading. It gives the impression of being a very narrative, almost story game like design but in order to pull off that narrative game flow it requires a lot if gamist system mastery. You need to know how Aspects function and all your many options of use. Need to know how Stunts work, Fate Points, Skills, Stress and how interconnected they all are. Not all Stunts are the same. You have many applications for using Fate Points. There are many ways to use Aspects - do you invoke, compel, create temporary aspects, scene aspects, consequence aspects?, etc.

These games can be super crunchy. Mindjammer and Legends of Anglerre are two of them.

Some recent games have a very interesting take, they have crunch on mechanics meaningful for the theme but they are light on the rules that are less important. I see this mostly on games created by Free League. For example Twilight 2000 has ammo dice, while in BladeRunner you have all the ammo you need. Year Zero Engine is so customized in every game that feel completelly different. Another example is Tales from the Loop vs Alien. The first doesn't even allow the kids to die, the 2nd you can be killed in a single turn by a Xenomorph. Compare this approach to something like GURPS or BRP, where they make.a generic system is crunch in every single area just to accommodate any possible theme or type of game. Life is too short for learning things that are not going to give you joy.

And then systems will have certain things light or heavy - 5e is heavy with combat, that’s its most robust system, but light with role playing. There’s no mechanic for how much NPCs like PCs, different types of arguments being more effective on certain people, etc like there are hit points and damage types.

Do you want the GM to tell people no, or do you want the game to tell people no XD
My wife doesnt like it when i tell her no, so when she is a player, i tend to run games with a heavier ruleset than usual, so that the "no" comes from the rulebook rather than me haha.

Another great video. I myself lean to rules lite but my players like to argue a lot so I write down my rulings and before too long Im playing a rules heavy game.

I love rules lite, but I'm very creative so I find rules heavy systems slow and clunky.

Rules heavy has a negative connotation. I think of those games as more "tactical" than rules light games where mastery of the system is rewarded. Generally combat in most system is where rules are the heaviest.

Been getting into Runequest lately. Going to get my crew to go thru the character creation soon and then onto the adventure. Runequest is definitely more rules heavy and even its sibling CoC

I think "rules sensible' is more appropriate.

Most rules light games feel incomplete (or they ARE incomplete and a minor cash grab post OGL).

Most rules heavy games have weird unforseen interaction, contradictory rules, or other issues due to wanting "crunch".

When games, like lancer, are also myopic, in that combat is rules heavy and outside the mech is not, you create a game that is unbalanced between role play.and combat and your gameplay comes across as incomplete or not caring about something.outside of one aspect.

Rules heavy, always. Situations where rules-lite is the best approach are always situations where not very much more work gets you into one-rule roleplaying, which is even better at what doing rules-lite systems do. Rules-lite systems kind of end up a crutch for tables that aren't confident doing free-form roleplay.

17:30 I think it's possible to bridge this gap. In my own system I've implemented in addition to basic actions (attack, defend, dash) the idea of a "skill" action where the player may attempt to use a skill in some way (there're 8 broadly defined skills). The rules do not provide a strict limit on what it may accomplish but examples like grappling and pickpocketing are provided.
This allows the shenanigans action (which is what I have actually called it around my players) to exist and even be interacted with mechanically (e.g. a trickster could use the trickery skill as a minor action instead if a major action).

I believe systems like Fabula Ultima have a similar treatment of soft rules being coded into the hard rules of conflicts.

My favorite TTRPG is Ishanekon: World Shapers and I would classify it as a 6 on your scale if you have to boil it down to a number. However, it has some great ways to please both sides of the rule spectrum.

Cinematic actions allow you to dip into the improvisational nature of rules-light TTRPGs, allowing you, at the cost of Narrative Momentum, to basically try everything the GM allows while only having to roll one Skill Check. There are even Sub-Archetypes that specialize in those and a Path so that you can go full in and play as a character that barely references any of the core mechanics.

On the other hand, it has the Traits (which you can pick with the GM's permission), which allow for almost GURPS levels of customization by taking negative and positive ones.

It also includes a Beginner and Core tag as well as a complexity rating for every single Sub-Archetype, Ability, feature, and item upgrade so that you can adjust the choices to what you feel comfortable with instead of being overwhelmed with the hundreds of options.

Whenever you're introducing someone new to TTRPGs, you always want to start with rules light games. But even with vets, they may not always want to play either light or heavy rule systems all the time. That's why always best to balance games with people who you know what they'll enjoy and always help bare in mind for others.

My favorite is Kids on Bikes!

Two things that make for a good rules light game are system reuse, and limited-no nondiagetic progression. System reuse is how you can add complexity to a rules light game without adding many rules. For example, a rules light game I've played treats spells like items, because the game already includes items and spells fill the same function, so use the same rules.
Limiting nondiagetic progression (i.e. leveling, skill increases, etc.) lets you avoid the added complication such progression brings (e.g. aditional character abilities), and you don't need to account for the impact of that progression on the gameplay, so you can use things like static DCs, etc.

On the other hand, rules heavy games benefit a lot from interacting systems. So instead of spells and items using the same system, your interactions with one system could impact on your options/access in another system, possibly via a third system (e.g. ability scores). This is especially good if they are active interactions, i.e. they occur during gameplay, though for this they do need to be simple enough to resolve at the table.
And while rules heavy games don't need progression, they can make much more use of it than a rules light game, because it allows the player to change their experience with the systems throughout the game. Interactions can become easier or more powerful, or you can build up or redirect the interactions between systems.

To me the holy grail of rules are simple rules that are still clearly defined adding a lot of possible details without crunch. It is so easy to make simple rules where you basically have one task resolution mechanics but everything else depends on how much everyone agrees on right and wrong on the table, and as a very old roleplayer i can tell you that this is an unstable state. Over time people change and the harmony at the table will be broken if you dont have a common ruleset to base your interactions in the game on.
It is also easy to make complicated rules that details everything possible but they are usually crunchy and can drain the vitality out of a game group over time, or even worse complicated rules that dont give the game a lot of variable options (like half the 2d20 games).

Right now the dice code version of the Year Zero engine is this system for me. It allows players a great deal of power to alter the odds and events in the game without having to rely of odds altering resource pools, while at the same time being so simple that you as a gm never have to spend time on thinking about stats and mechanics when you prepare for sessions. And it still have thing probably more clearly defined than games like pathfinder.

The vast amount of examples are really appreatiated. Really cool analisis and very well conveyed!
I really the point that a TTRPG skill should be transferable between different GMs: It's really sad when a GM has to tell a player that what they are trying to do is not actually in the rules, but a homebrew they assimilated probably from another group :/

Great work!